POLICE CORRUPTION EMBROILS LA IN A LEGAL NIGHTMARE

Up to 3,200 criminal cases in Los Angeles may have to be reviewed as a
result of an inquiry into police corruption. The implications are enormous,
both for the city's finances and for the morale of the police department in
a city with more than 60,000 gang members. Twenty-five local groups,
including the local branch of the National Lawyers' Guild, the National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the American Civil
Liberties Union, have united to fight for police accountability, because of
a fear that the force and the city's mayor, Richard Riordan, will not take
the necessary steps to clean up the LAPD.

The inquiry was sparked by the arrest of officer Rafael Perez for stealing
cocaine from a police evidence room and recycling it. In exchange for
receiving a short sentence, Perez is blowing the whistle on fellow members
of the force.

It is alleged that he and his partner, Nino Durden, deliberately shot and
paralysed a gang member, then planted a gun on him, for which the gang
member later received a 23-year prison sentence. That jail sentence has now
been overturned.

It has also been suggested that a former Los Angeles police officer may
have been involved in arranging the murder of the rap singer Notorious
B.I.G. in 1997.

Defence lawyers will now be able to argue that every case involving Perez
or the officers fingered by him is inevitably tainted. Every wrongful
imprisonment could lead to a civil lawsuit against the city. In total nine
verdicts have already been reversed and 13 police officers have been
suspended from duty.

The district attorney, Gil Garcetti, says it is unclear whether 20, 30 or
100 officers have falsified evidence, or how large a percentage of the
10,000-strong force they represent. Seven lawyers are working full-time in
his office to follow up the allegations made by Perez. Mr Garcetti disputes
the figure of 3,200 possibly tainted cases, which is being suggested by
defence lawyers, and says that it is impossible at this stage to say how
many cases will ultimately be involved.

An integral part of the scandal has been what embattled local police
officers regard as acceptable conduct in fighting gang warfare, which
claimed more than 100 lives in the city during the course of last year.
Some believe that the only way to get convictions in a system they see as
biased in favour of defendants is by fabricating evidence.

Defence lawyers argue that, given the heavy penalties handed out for gang
violence, only the clearest prosecutions should be allowed to proceed.
Already curfew orders imposed on named gang members have had to be
withdrawn because the evidence that was used to obtain them was given by
suspect officers.

Although the events have received much coverage locally, and the Los
Angeles Times has run frequent front-page stories on the saga, some civil
rights groups are concerned about a perceived lack of concern on behalf of
the public.

"What happened is outrageous," said Ramona Ripston of the local branch of
the ACLU. "[It's] worse than New York and yet nobody is responding."